Sixty-year-old undeveloped film

I recently liberated a box of old photos and negatives from my grandfather's
personal effects. Along with the developed items, I found three rolls of
apparently
exposed but undeveloped 35mm film. One is Kodak "Panatomic," and the other
two are Kodak "Panchromatic SS" and "Panchromatic SX." I assume the latter
are color film. Assuming they're contemporary with the other 35mm negatives,
they were exposed around 1940. Is there any chance that they'll produce
usable
negatives, or are they junk?

Thanks
-Mark

"Mark" wrote in message
...
I recently liberated a box of old photos and negatives from my
grandfather's
personal effects. Along with the developed items, I found three rolls of
apparently
exposed but undeveloped 35mm film. One is Kodak "Panatomic," and the other
two are Kodak "Panchromatic SS" and "Panchromatic SX." I assume the latter
are color film. Assuming they're contemporary with the other 35mm
negatives,
they were exposed around 1940. Is there any chance that they'll produce
usable
negatives, or are they junk?

Thanks
-Mark


Its definetly worth a try at developing them, I know of a guy who was given
an old camera, found a film inside and had it developed, the photographs
where taken by his grandfather during a holiday in germany a few years
before the outbreak of WWII, he had some clear photos of Adolf Hitler at a
rally, so you never know, might be soem really interesting photos on those
films.

Brian.......................


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Mark wrote:

I recently liberated a box of old photos and negatives from my grandfather's
personal effects. Along with the developed items, I found three rolls of
apparently
exposed but undeveloped 35mm film. One is Kodak "Panatomic," and the other
two are Kodak "Panchromatic SS" and "Panchromatic SX." I assume the latter
are color film. Assuming they're contemporary with the other 35mm negatives,
they were exposed around 1940. Is there any chance that they'll produce
usable
negatives, or are they junk?

Thanks
-Mark

Panchromatic means black and white film with approximately equal
response
to all ranges of color. I've developed some 40 year old 120 film this
year
with good results and printable negatives, just requiring a higher paper
contrast. Developing black and white is pretty cheap, so you'd be out
a little time and money at home (or a little more money if you send it
out custom) against the possibility of having some irreplaceable family
pictures (and a good story to tell.) Why not?

Rob Dean

"Mark" wrote in message
...
I recently liberated a box of old photos and negatives
from my grandfather's
personal effects. Along with the developed items, I found
three rolls of
apparently
exposed but undeveloped 35mm film. One is Kodak
"Panatomic," and the other
two are Kodak "Panchromatic SS" and "Panchromatic SX." I
assume the latter
are color film. Assuming they're contemporary with the
other 35mm negatives,
they were exposed around 1940. Is there any chance that
they'll produce
usable
negatives, or are they junk?

Thanks
-Mark

Panatomic is the predecessor to Panatomic-X. Panchromatic
SS is black and white film SS means super-sensitive. Not
sure of the SX, are you sure it says that? Both of the
others are 1930's films older than sixty years, more like 65
or more years old.
Its possible for the latent image to survive that long.
Roll film seems especially long lasting perhaps because the
tight rolling prevents oxidation. There is an outfit called
Film Rescue that specializes in processing of old films, not
cheap but they have a good record of success.
http://www.filmrescue.com/
Otherwise I suggest using a fairly active developer at
much lower than normal temperatures. I have film data going
back to the mid 1940's but not much before that. I'll look
but I don't think I have specific instuctions on these
films.
Panatomic replaced a fine grain motion picture stock
called Background-X c.1938, I think Panatomic replaced
Background-X shortly after. By the early 1940's Panatomic-X
had replaced both. I would guess these films date from
c.1937, maybe even earlier. It is certainly worth trying to
develop them.


--
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA

On Monday 16 February 2004 06:00 pm, Mark wrote:

I recently liberated a box of old photos and negatives from my
grandfather's personal effects. Along with the developed items, I
found three rolls of apparently
exposed but undeveloped 35mm film. One is Kodak "Panatomic," and the
other two are Kodak "Panchromatic SS" and "Panchromatic SX." I assume
the latter are color film. Assuming they're contemporary with the
other 35mm negatives, they were exposed around 1940. Is there any
chance that they'll produce usable
negatives, or are they junk?

Why don't you process them and find out? What have you got to loose?

--
Stefan Patric

"Richard Knoppow" wrote:

Panatomic is the predecessor to Panatomic-X. Panchromatic
SS is black and white film SS means super-sensitive. Not
sure of the SX, are you sure it says that? Both of the
others are 1930's films older than sixty years, more like 65
or more years old.

Here's a scan of the film cans:

http://www.speakeasy.org/~mgendron/g.../film_cans.jpg

"Stefan Patric" wrote:

Why don't you process them and find out? What have you got to loose?

Well, the unopened antique film cans look nice on my shelf. :-)

Kodak did not start crimping on end caps until the mid-60's (or later) so
you should be able to "pop" the lids on these canisters in the darkroom,
process the film in trays (I'd almost guarantee too much curl to load the
film on any kind of reels!) and then replace the spools and end caps and put
the film canisters on display on the shelf.

--
darkroommike

----------
"Mark" wrote in message
...
"Stefan Patric" wrote:

Why don't you process them and find out? What have you got to loose?

Well, the unopened antique film cans look nice on my shelf. :-)

Well, dang! The film cartridges were empty. Oh well. . .they're nice
antiques.

"Mark" wrote in message
...
"Richard Knoppow" wrote:

Panatomic is the predecessor to Panatomic-X.
Panchromatic
SS is black and white film SS means super-sensitive. Not
sure of the SX, are you sure it says that? Both of the
others are 1930's films older than sixty years, more
like 65
or more years old.

Here's a scan of the film cans:

http://www.speakeasy.org/~mgendron/g.../film_cans.jpg

These look like they were packaged for special purpose
use since they say Eastman rather than Kodak on them. I
wonder if they were even packaged by Kodak, they may be bulk
loaded cassettes with lables showing the kind of film in
them. SX with some thought is probably Super-X. This was a
motion picture stock. The brand "Super-X" was used for 16mm
reversal film but was a 35mm negative stock before that, c.
mid 1930's. Eventually it was replaced by Plus-X and the
name Super-X used for the reversal film. SS is Super
Sensitive Pan, also a motion picture stock of the mid to
late 1930's. Panatomic was also used for a motion picture
stock replacing the former Background and Background-X
stocks, both very slow, very fine grain (for the time)
motion picture negative films for outdoor use. Background
implyed the film was intended for filming background
"plates" i.e., the films used in rear projection shots.
What I think is that these are bulk loaded from "short
ends" of these films. That might have been done pre-ww-2 but
tons of film were available military surplus right after the
war and were sold both in bulk and spooled.
Its too bad the film is gone because the type of
perforations would tell the story. 35mm motion picture
negative stock uses Bell & Howell perforations, which have
semicircular sides. 35mm positive films and still camera
films have Kodak Standard perfs which are oblong with
rounded corners. Some very early film for 35mm still cameras
had the negative perforations but films from at least the
mid 1930's, perhaps even earlier, had KS perfs.


--
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA